Let Me Sing

by Greg Adams
Even ardent consumers of Brenda Lee's prolific album output can be forgiven for feeling as though her '60s albums all began to sound the same. That impression only deepened as the decade wore on, but in 1963 Lee's bottomless fund of pop ballads could still seem fresh. Let Me Sing begins predictably enough with a Cole Porter song ("Night and Day") but also includes "Break It to Me Gently" -- one of Lee's greatest '60s hits -- and "Losing You." Bobby Darin's "You're the Reason I'm Living" is the kind of cover material preferable to the traditional pop songs that tended to dominate Lee's ballad albums, but Let Me Sing manages to sound vital where very similar albums failed later in her career. Not surprisingly, Let Me Sing was also Lee's second-to-last Top 40 album.